PETpla.net Insider 07+08 / 2018

MATERIALS / RECYCLING PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 07+08/18 www.petpla.net 10 New technologies and effective strategies The future of the circular economy More than 1,000 guests invited by Erema made their way to Ansfelden, Austria, for the Discovery Days June 27-29, 2018. Well-known companies from the plastics sector, such as Borealis, Engel, Greiner, Haidlmair and Henkel gave par- ticipants an insight into their view of working with plastics in a sustainable way. With this year’s Discovery Days Erema staged a multi-company event to inspire its attendees together to address what is without doubt the most talked about topic in the plastics industry: how the amount of recy- cled material and the recyclability of end products can be increased. At the beginning of the conference Manfred Hackl, Erema Group CEO, summed up the challenges facing the industry as follows “To reach the new European recycling goal of 55% by 2030, more than 10 million tonnes of recyclate has to be used in the end markets. Compared to 2014, this corresponds to more than double the amount of recycled material. To achieve this, we as raw material manufacturers, producers, processors and recyclers together have to identify new markets, make use of previ- ously untapped sources of plastic and implement an even stronger design for recycling in the long term.” The presentation of concrete light- house projects in the post-consumer and production waste recycling sec- tors showed how advanced the tech- nical recycling solutions are already. For them to become a fixed part of the solutions of tomorrow, everyone involved in the entire plastics chain must have an intensive exchange of experience. “As a producer of brand articles we work systematically together with our partners on optimis- ing our packaging. In doing so we rely on small amounts of material which are made with recyclate and, at the same time, are recyclable. Resource efficiency and premium products are not a contradiction in terms in our view,” says Thorsten Leopold, Head of International Packaging Develop- ment Home Care at Henkel. Attend- ees were shown how far-reaching the product range of such end products made of recyclate already is today at the accompanying product exhibi- tion at the Erema headquarters. From pipes for the construction industry and lifestyle products such as sunglasses to coffee machines – products con- taining recycled material have been part of daily lives for quite some time. High-quality recyclate is essential here. Visitors were able to see a total of ten recycling machines from Erema and its sister company Pure Loop were live in action around the clock. Communication as the key to the circular economy The presentation of selected pioneer projects made it absolutely clear that the plastics chain can only grow through communication. Engel with injection moulding and Haidlmair in the tool making sector, for exam- ple, showed that it is not automati- cally necessary to develop existing products even further in order to use recycled pellets, often all that is needed in the first step is know- ledge transfer between producers and recycling specialists. New and further developments by mechanical and tool engineers aim more at increasing pro- cess consistency when using recycled pellets in order to use them in an even broader spectrum. The idea of the LIT Factory, a public 4.0 pilot facility under the lead- ership of the Linz Institute of Tech- nology (LIT) at the Johannes Kepler University, showed how production could be in the future. Local compa- nies will be able to try out digitalised Dr Gerold Breuer, Head of Marketing & Business Development at Erema guided the visi- tors through a three days program with interesting speeches and panel discussions. F.l.t.r.: The raw material producers Anton Wolfsberger, Head of Marketing Consumer Products and Pipe at Borea- lis, and Alexander van Veen, Managing Director / Commercial, Procurement & TS&D at Braskem Netherlands, gave insights into their view of a sustainable plastics industry in a discussion, moder- ated by Steven Chaid.